Germany 2018 – Part 2

On Tuesday of my trip to Germany we drove to Singen to visit the ruins of Hohentwiel castle.  It’s the largest castle ruin in Germany.  It’s amazing!  Built originally in 914 atop an extinct volcano it has QUITE the views!  I loved it!

      

The grounds are beautiful:

      

I loved this arch – I kept walked closer and taking pictures:

      

Here’s a zoomed in view of what lays beyond the arch:

I love stone, moss, & ivy:

      

One of the arches has 1554 carved onto the keystone, which is when the royal seat was completed during renovations under Duke Christoph:

       

You can see the city of Singen in the first pic:

      

Looking SE you can see Lake Konstanz 20 miles in the distance – we headed there to visit my nephew Tristan and his wife and son for dinner:

The castle was used as a prison in the early 1500s and again in the 1700s – no thanks!:

      

After spending an hour walking around, we began the long trek back down to the car [I forgot to mention that walking up SUCKED BAD!  Especially after climbing the Münster the day before…  You can drive some of the way up, but after leaving your beloved car behind you have to walk about 1/2 mile up a steep road and then, once you enter the castle grounds, it’s UP UP UP a series of cobblestone ramps, wooden bridges, and stone stairs]:

      

Down, down, down:

      

Once we got back to the road, my sister and I noticed a little door embedded in a stone wall.  We decided to investigate and found a very cool cemetery:

       

       

The earliest stones we could find were from the early 1800s, so it’s not a terribly old cemetery.  Some graves were even from the 2000s!  But it was very small.  I could not find any information on the Hohentwiel Cemetery in google…

Then it was off to Rodolfzell, which is on the edge of Lake Konstanz, to meet up with my nephew and niece-in-law and their 1-year old son, Jakob.  Lake Konstanz is beautiful in the fall – I can imagine how busy and gorgeous it must be in the summer:

       

They have an amazing view of Lake Konstanz from their apartment:

We had a lovely dinner, then wandered around Rodolfzell a bit.  We walked by a fountain and I was so happy to see a pigeon sitting on one of the pipes taking a leisurely drink:

       

Late afternoon/early evening light is always amazing.

      

Then it was back to Singen where my sister and brother-in-law had rented a apartment for the night.  It was such a cool apartment, with a very comfortable guest room & bed, and very funky lighting!:

       

The kitchen had the cool starfish kind of light, the living rom had the blue and white LED orbs, and my guest bedroom had a blue light option.  I freaked hubby out when we were talking on Skype that evening by switching off the regular light and switching on the blue instead:

      

We enjoyed some snacks, beer [Daniela], & wine [Joachim and myself], then headed to bed.  Once again, Google translate saved the day when I was trying to converse with Daniela 🙂